Showing events on this day in years past that shaped history... just, not our history.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

May 31, 1902 – Treaty of Vereeniging Assures Boer Independence

After generations
of colonial strife between Dutch Boer and British settlers, the
matter of dominance in southern Africa came to an end with
recognition of independence for the Boer Republics. Dutch settlement
began in 1652 with the establishment of a refreshment station along
the Cape Sea Route. Introducing slave labor, the Dutch expanded and
defeated the native Xhosa in wars that gradually added more and more
territory to Boer (“farmer”) control. As naval supremacy shifted
from Dutch to British hands, new waves of British settlers arrived,
pushing the Dutch toward an inland migration. The two peoples lived
somewhat peacefully until the discovery of diamonds in 1866.
European powers descended on Africa, carving it up into their own
empires, and the British annexed mineral-rich Transvaal to ensure
dominance.

The
Boers balked under British government and declared independence in
1880. While they did not have the advanced weaponry of the British
soldiers, the Boers did have intimate knowledge of the land and
conducted devastating guerrilla attacks. Prime Minister Gladstone
offered a treaty in 1881, which allowed Boers in Transvaal and the
Orange Free State self-government with a parliament under Queen
Victoria's rule. The peace lasted for a time until the discovery of
gold in 1886 at Witwatersrand
(“White Water Ridge”) prompted a predominantly British gold rush.
Tensions grew again, and, in 1895, Cape Colony Prime Minister Cecil
Rhodes launched the Jameson Raid to seize Johannesburg from
Transvaal. The Boers repulsed and
arrested the attackers, sending them back to the British for trial,
and began an alliance between Transvaal and the Orange Free State for
defense. Ultimatums were sent out on both sides, not met, and the
war began with a devastating Boer offensive in 1899 with tactics
comparable to the First Boer War. The British retaliated with more
than 180,000 men, dealing with guerrillas by systematically searching
out and arresting whole Boer families and placing them in
concentration camps.

While
the bloody war dragged on in southern Africa, it laid a pretense for
the rest of Europe to attack on the high seas. Britain had held
unquestioned naval superiority since the Battle of Trafalgar and the
simultaneous defeats of the French and Spanish fleets, but new
nations had grown over the tumultuous nineteenth century. Kaiser
Wilhelm II of Germany took note of the bloodshed in Africa first with
the Jameson Raid, after which he sent a telegram to President Kruger
of Transvaal saying, “I express to you my sincere congratulations
that you and your people, without appealing to the help of friendly
powers, have succeeded, by your own energetic action against the
armed bands which invaded your country as disturbers of the peace, in
restoring peace and in maintaining the independence of the country
against attack from without.” The telegram spurred outcry in
Britain and much anti-German sentiment. Four years later in February
of 1900, according to his memoirs, the Kaiser “received news by
telegraph...that Russia and France had proposed to Germany to make a
joint attack on England, now that she was involved elsewhere, and to
cripple her sea traffic.”

Wilhelm
was unnerved by the idea of attacking Britain, which had lost its
beloved Queen Victoria, his grandmother, only weeks before, but he
determined to feel out the possibility for success. Britain had
recently begun renovating its fleet under the Naval Defense Act of
1898, a response to Germany's own First Fleet Act, showing that it
meant to always outpace Germany's seaward expansion. In 1900, as
German Admiral Tirpitz worked to completed a new bill for dozens of
ships, three German mail ships were humiliatingly boarded by a
British cruiser searching for weapon supplies for Boers. The efforts
of British soldiers to restrict Boer freedom of movement to limit
guerrilla flexibility came to press that fall, and Wilhelm saw his
opportunity to act in their defense. He called a conference of
Russia (who had battled with Britain in the Great Game for central
Asia for decades), France (who had been humiliated at the Fashoda
Incident in 1898), and Portugal (whose Pink Map strategy of linking
Africa east and west had been destroyed by the 1890 British
Ultimatum, demanding central Africa for Britain for its Cape to Cairo
railway) in addition to old allies Austria-Hungary and Italy and drew
up an ultimatum for Britain to remove her forces from the Boer
Republics or face blockade.

Although
many in Britain did not want to see war, it seemed to be a turning
point for the end of her colonial power. Debate continued almost
endlessly in Parliament between the peace-minded Liberals under David
Lloyd George and Conservatives who controlled the government, and
finally the deadline of January 1, 1901, passed without action hoping
that the Kaiser had bluffed and could not maintain control of such a
varied coalition. However, each nation seemed to have its own issues
with Britain and were happy to form a united attack, leading to the
First World War. Although Europe itself was practically devoid of
military action, there were unprecedented sea battles along with a
German, French, and Portuguese campaigns into central Africa from the
Orange State to Sudan, seizure of the Suez Canal, and a Russian march
on Tibet, threatening India. Britain's imperial resources became
stretched thin, and its search for allies only turned up Japan, who
effectively took Russia out of the war.

The end of the war
in 1905 was brought about through a conference held by American
President Theodore Roosevelt, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for
his actions. Britain's empire became hamstrung, but the resulting
treaties outlined a method of international oversight to ensure the
actions taken against Boers (which continued to serve as the grounds
of war) could never happen again became an international court to
slow imperialism for other actions in later land-rushes in China and
the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

--

In reality, the Kaiser “objected and
ordered that the proposal should be declined”, ending the notion of
a multinational naval war with Britain. He instead notified “Queen
Victoria and to the Prince of Wales (Edward) the facts of the
Russo-French proposal, and its refusal by me. The Queen answered
expressing her hearty thanks, the Prince of Wales with an expression
of astonishment.” The British strategies of containment eventually
wore down the guerrillas, ending the war in 1902 with the Peace of
Vereeniging, which promised to return self-rule to the Boer
Republics: a promise made good in 1907.